Zhang Ziyi and Lu Yue Presented with Asia Pacific Screen Awards

Thursday, 17 April 2014

Zhang Ziyi accepts the 2013 APSA for Best Performance by an Actress from Australian Ambassador to China Her Excellency Ms Frances Adamson

Beijing: At a unique event coinciding with the 2014 Beijing International Film Festival, the Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) today presented the 2013 APSA for Best Performance by an Actress to Zhang Ziyi for her role in Yi dai zong shi (The Grandmaster) and the Achievement in Cinematography award to Lu Yue for his work on Feng Xiaogang’s Yi Jiu Si Er (Back to 1942). Marking a major international award win for the celebrated actress, Zhang Ziyi was also inducted into the prestigious Asia Pacific Screen Academy, a growing body of approximately 660 respected filmmakers from across the region, of which Lu Yue is already a member, having received a nomination in the same category in 2010 for Tangshan Dadizheng (Aftershock).

The event was attended by APSA Chairman Michael Hawkins and Director of Award Competition Maxine Williamson, the MPA Director of Communications Stephen Jenner, members of both the China Film Producers Association and the Beijing Film Academy and the Australian Ambassador to China, Her Excellency Ms Frances Adamson who presented Zhang Ziyi and Lu Yue with their awards.

Zhang Ziyi won the award for her role as martial arts fighter Gong Er in Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster (Yi dai zong shi, Hong Kong (PRC), People’s Republic of China). An epic action feature inspired by the life and times of the legendary kung fu master, Ip Man, the film is one of 15 films currently in competition at the Beijing International Film Festival. Already a multi-award winning actress, Zhang Ziyi is best known internationally for her roles in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the Oscar® nominated Hero and Memoirs of a Geisha, for which she received a Best Actress Golden Globe® nomination. She is also the star of the newly released Coldplay ‘Magic’ music video, which in just days received more than 6 million views on YouTube.

One of China’s leading cinematographers and an Oscar® nominee, Lu Yue was present to accept his award for Achievement in Cinematography for Feng Xiaogang’s Back To 1942 (Yi Jiu Si Er).

At the same event, APSA Chairman Michael Hawkins announced the members of the 2014 International Nominations Council, including the return of China’s award-winning screenwriter Wang Qun, and launched the 2014 APSA Academy film development funds. The film funds, supported by the Motion Picture Association and Manila-based 4 Boys Films, are now open for submissions exclusively from APSA Academy Members.

APSA Chairman Michael Hawkins said, “APSA is very proud of its strong relationship with the Chinese film industry and filmmakers and we greatly value the opportunity to hold an event such as this one in China, both as a key part of the Asia Pacific region and as a country whose films are very well represented in competition at APSA each year. We are honoured to be able to present these two extraordinary 2013 APSA winners, Zhang Ziyi and Lu Yue, with their unique winners vessels and it is with great pleasure that we announce the 2014 International Nominations Council and the 2014 APSA Academy film development funds.”

Testament to the quality of films being produced by the Chinese film industry, China’s representation and involvement at APSA has grown exponentially since the event’s inception in 2007. APSA is proud to have had a representative from People’s Republic of China sit on the International Jury for each of the seven APSA’s to date. Over 120 Chinese films have competed in total, and films from People’s Republic of China have received more nominations than any other country, and have received nominations across all award categories. Previous winners include 2014 BJIFF juror Lu Chuan, winner of the Achievement in Directing award for City of Life and Death (Nanjing! Nanjing!), Wang Baoqiang and Chen Daoming for Best Performance by an Actor, Aftershock for Best Feature Film and Zhang Yimou who was the recipient of the 2011 FIAPF award. Both the APSA Academy Children’s Film Fund and the MPA APSA Academy Film Fund have awarded funding to Chinese submissions.

Announcing the 2014 International Nominations Council, Michael Hawkins welcomed Wang Qun back to the council for 2014, along with chairman of the council Hong-joon Kim from Republic of Korea, India’s Meenakshi Shedde, Philip Cheah from Singapore, Mohammad Atebbai from the Islamic Republic of Iran and Kathryn Weir, Anne Démy-Geroe and Maxine Williamson from Australia.

The 2014 APSA Academy Children’s Film Fund, established in 2011 by APSA and Academy member Butch Jimenez’s Manila-based 4 Boys Films, offers two AU$20,000 grants annually.

The fund aims to provide script development support to children’s feature films that carry positive, life affirming messages specifically for and about children of Asia Pacific. The grants are exclusively offered to APSA Academy members with the intention of stimulating the development of their, and their Asia Pacific colleagues’, feature film projects.

An initiative of the Motion Picture Association (MPA) in collaboration with APSA, the MPA APSA Academy Film Fund is once again in 2014 offering four US$25,000 grants to projects to further their stories from treatment stage to final script. Open to submissions from APSA Academy members, the grants will be awarded at the 2014 awards ceremony.

The 8th Asia Pacific Screen Awards presented by Treasury Casino & Hotel will be held in Brisbane, Australia on Thursday 11 December 2014 at Brisbane’s spectacular City Hall.

For more information on the awards visit www.asiapacificscreenawards.com

The Awards, supported by Brisbane City Council and managed by economic development board Brisbane Marketing in a unique collaboration with Paris-based UNESCO and FIAPF—International Federation of Film Producers Associations, recognise and promote cinematic excellence and cultural diversity of the world’s fastest growing film region: comprising 70 countries and areas, 4.5 billion people, and responsible for half of the world’s film output. In 2013, 39 films from 22 countries and areas received award nominations.